DarkSiders2 On M18x R2

My computer specs are:
Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor
16GB 1600 RAM
INTEL 520 SSD 240GB
2X AMD 7970 CROSSX
COMPLETE CLEAN INSTALL WITH DRIVER 12.7

I am trying Play Darksidrs 2 but as soon as I meet the first maker the game crashes with blank screen and a hissing sound from the speakers

Driver 12.6 because 12.7 was not working well with my system
All the other games are running without any problem like skyrim, Saint row III, the witcher 2 and many more

any help will be appreciated

 

That's funny.. that is almost the exact point where my laptop caught on fire... it was during the cinematic scene with the first maker.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

Oh boy.. Not sure I want to play Dark Siders 2 now.. Wouldn't want my Alien to meet its maker XD

 

Just bought it - going to test it..

 

Seems to happen fairly often with 7970M CF. You may find some other games that do that. If I play it long enough, Metro 2033 will almost always do that. Sometimes the "hiss" is a "buzz" but it depends on the sound that is being played at the time the error occurs.

 

How to deal with this black crap? I have it every 5 mins in that game rofl

 

How is it going so far? Have you tried it yet

 

This game is awesome if you enjoyed the first one which, by the way, i recommend playing before starting this one.

Apart from some minor issues i ran into (triple monitor setup..) , after finding their solution i can say i'm impressed.

If you folks run into some issues, they might have a solution already. See here:
Fixing Darksiders 2 Crashes, Errors, Freezing, Lagging, Poor FPS, Black screen, No Sound, Texture Flicker, Out of Range, Cannot Start, Save Problems

 

I personally had no problems with the game... it ran perfectly, no black screens or anything... I think my 7970m's were indeed gifted. Everything was fine until... well you guys already know...

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I did everything I can do.
My ambient temp was 18C that is about 65F
GPU1: avg was 60c Max was 68c during crash was around 57c
GPU2: avg was 58c Max was 61c during Crash was around 55c
CPU: avg was 60c Max was 64c during crash was around 54c
Now I am very sure it is not a Heat issue even the Plastic was not as warm as it gets when I play witcher 2
I did a game verification I did a complete reinstall of the game and the most surprising thing that it crashed in the same place it did before with the same hissing sound from the speaker. I mean exactly in the scene when I met the first maker. This is definitely a bug and not a random or a heat issue. I can easily create it as it happens as soon as I meet the first maker and it happens every time. I tried it 3 times now and all of the crashes happend at the same time.

Any suggestion well be appreciated

 

12.8 Drivers CAP3. Black screen everytime i start to play and after 1-2 mins i am getting a black screen, tried to play on default settings - same thing. What to do?

 

Can you tell us you drivers and specs please

I was really really waiting for this game and the this crap happens
I am extremely angry. This should not happen

 

So have you fixed that game?

 

Sadly No, I could not find any solution and I do not know what to do
even with 12.8 nothing has changed
it still hangs at the same place.
one thing I have noticed though is that during CrossX I am getting 90% usage of Both GPU with about 100 to 90 FPS but when I disabled it. I was getting about 150 FPS with about 80% Usage of GPU1
But it crashed anyway at the exact same place

 

So what are we gonna do?

 

The only difference I see in our systems that can possibly have effect on performance issues is the fact that you have an R2 and I am running a R1.... I haven't had any issues running SC2 or Darksiders 2... then again it could just be that I got lucky with a good batch of GPU's.... was running 12.8 /w cap 3

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Not really a acceptable solution but have you tried to downclock your card and see if it still gives you any problems? Let us know what you find... If it doesnt crash we can at least lean more towards defective/bad batch of cards.... Maybe run 100mhz less on core+mem??? Keep us posted...

 

Downclocking by 100mhz core/memory didn't helped.... i blame drivers... 12.7 and 12.8 black screening dark siders 2 all the time.

 

I tried to downclock 100mhz less but it dose not seem to affect anything other than the FRP is now about 10-20 Frames less.
I heard it actually might be related to the cpu so i am going to try and disable 2 cores and see if that helps

 

tried that already - no effect... but maybe i did that wrong way? how have you disabled it? When i logged in the game i alt-tabbed + ctrl+alt+del and set affinity to only 2 cores.

 

Just to get past that particular spot at the first maker, I switched to integrated graphics and managed to get ahead with the game. Couple of autosaves later, I thought it safe to switch back to proper gaming but.. the black screen freeze occurred again shortly down the road when I challenged Thane to a fight (after a few hits on him some blue spirit-like thing came off him and got absorbed by Death and then bzzzzz). I was hoping against hope that the freeze might be caused by a low-occurrence texture or effect that wouldn't be seen again so soon but.. Looks like this game's gotta stay on hold. It makes me shudder to think about having to play through the whole game with Intel HD 4000!!

 

I bring good tidings my friends. I disabled full screen mode in-game and had a solid hour (or two) of fun without problems! Despite whatever performance implications that windowed mode entails, it ran smoothly enough for me so no complaints. Gotta wipe the sweat off my forehead now- thought I was gonna have to fork out another £500 for a pair of 680's..

Edit: £500? Where on earth did I get that number into my head

 

Bad tidings - i have played in windowed mode for 5-10 minutes more then black screened holy s....

 

Is your CPU overclocked? Some say the game's got CPU issues..

 

Yeah, i have 400mhz overclock, don't you?

 

Sadly so far nothing has worked. I have tried everything I can possibly try but still with the same problem.
That is it. I do not know what to do anymore !

 

I've yet to run into obvious bottlenecks with the CPU so clocks are stock. In fact I would rather take AF/AA or whatever down a notch than overclock (now that I've extended warranty by 3 years maybe I'll revise this stand .

Funny how you assume everyone's overclocking It's not like we have XM processors!

 

SO the game works fin in windowed mode for you? Can you OC your cpu and test that game?

 

Say say say say.. Why don't we ask the one who's playing with fire to stamp it out just for a day instead of the other way round I might give it a try in the end but that's provided I'm done with work first..

mrnet_01 seemed to imply that windowed mode didn't work for him either so maybe it's just a matter of time before I get black screens again

 

On my M18X R1 with 6970M XFire everything runs correctly, using 12.8WHQL and 12.7 Cap3.

 

its related to 7970m's i guess rofl

 

Told ya I won't have to OC anything before the black screens appear again..

For those who can't play Darksiders 2 due to 7970M, check out this video of an M17x R4 with 7970M having a blast with the game.

 

Did some research today during lunch break and made myself a short list of no less than 8 possible "fixes" for the problem, mostly taken from a thread discussing about 7870 black screen crashes. They range from the mildly plausible, such as installing a modded driver, to the downright stupid- game booster 3 anyone? After about 8 (coincidence?) of the same black screens, I have finally given up (again).

It would be helpful for people who are NOT having problems with Darksider II on their 7970M to chime in unless it's really a disaster across the board? 680M gloaters, you guys probably deserve it this time..

 

Update: underclocking (775/1050) does work to eliminate in-game black screen while still maintaining a stable 60 FPS HOWEVER, if I fiddle around with the inventory for too long, the screen freezes and the computer crashes (happened twice)!

This crash is different though. There is no black screen, no looping sound; it just freezes quietly. Also, you get to move around your mouse cursor for a few seconds before it freezes too.

A closer look reveals that at the moment of the crash, the core clocks of both GPU's were at 300 MHz!! This means I REALLY need those 2D clocks banished for good. However I lost my flash drive and I can't possibly empty my external hard drive for ATIFlash so I'm stuck for now.. Might have to get an empty DVD for cheap somewhere..

mrnet_01 and Heihachi88, do have a go at what I'm planning. All the best!

 

So we need to make 2d clocks same as 3d?

 

And we can't just use the vBIOS that Mr. Fox has kindly shared since that 2D clocks would be too high for Darksiders II..

Damn I miss the days when Rivatuner let you adjust 2D/3D clocks on the fly

 

I use 118 vBios, which one should i download?

 

I'm afraid there's no ready-made vBIOS for wretches like us. Have to edit it yourself. I'm trying to follow Mr. Fox's tip using vBIOS patcher but I first have to get my hands on.. vBIOS patcher

 

Hello,
Sorry I was busy in the last couple of days.
sadly, I know nothing about bios modification for GPUs. As this is actually my first alienware and my first gaming laptop.
and so far I have found out that the game dose not crash or freeze if you do not move. what I mean is that today i ran the game and loaded everything till I was ready to move but did not move. I let it stay for about 2 hours and the game did not crash or freeze then I played for about 6 min then suddenly black screen with the hissing sound. So as far as you do not move around the game will not crash.
what do you think is the cause of this

 

If you do not move, the load on the GPU is rather constant and low so it might not crash at all. However, I am fairly convinced that the black screen freeze during normal gameplay is due to the clocks being unstable. The following experience is what convinced me in the first place:

I was having a blast OCing the CPU and quite pleased that my 3820QM holds 3.9 on all cores quite stably without too much of a temperature concern. Hungry for more, I went on to OC the GPUs to something like 925/1400 which is quite moderate or so I thought.

I knew Darksider II was a dead end so I tested by playing Sleeping Dogs. The result was.. just weird. Firstly, the min. FPS did not improve. In fact, it might have been lower with the OC. Secondly, the GPU temps were actually lower (~64 deg.C) along with GPU utilisation.

But I digress. After a mission or two, the black screen freeze happened for the first time outside of Darksiders II for me. Same old black screen with looping sound. Are you thinking what I was thinking?

Lowered the clocks by 25/50 steps in Darksiders II and eventually at 775/1050, the game was stable. Had a boss fight and many autosaves without crashes, but eventually crashed when I was inspecting my loot in the inventory. Seeing it was a different crash, I lowered the clocks some more to 750/1000 and again the gameplay was crash-free until I outstayed the inventory's welcome. This time, as I mentioned earlier, I noted the 300MHz core clock at the moment of the crash and came to my conclusion that 2D clocks caused the new type of crash.

I'm in the process of obtaining the tools to create the ideal vBIOS for us horsemen wannabes. Meanwhile, Mr. Fox has very kindly helped me (without me directly asking ) to make a vBIOS with both 2D and 3D clocks at 775/1050. I will release that after successful flashing and testing.

There is hope yet my friends!

 

If downclocking the GPUs does not resolve the issue, try removing the CPU overclock. If your BCLK is over 100Mhz, drop it to 100Mhz and test again.

Many games have issues with CPU overclocking. The hanging with looping sounds or loud electronic buzzing noises can be a symptom of CPU or GPU overclocking, or BCLK set too high.

I have experienced this problem with everything at stock (no CPU, GPU, BCLK or memory overclocking) with 7970M CrossFire, but I don't have DarkSiders 2. This was happening to me with quite a few games. The problem seems more prevalent with DirectX 11 than it does with DirectX 9/10. This seems to be a 7970M bug, and setting my 2D core/memory/voltage equal to 3D took *mostly* care of it for me. I see it did not work for DarkSiders 2, so hopefully downclocking will help. There seems to be a functionality problem with AMD PowerPlay and the new dynamic clocking crap that AMD built into the 7970M video cards. Setting 2D values to match 3D effectively disables that dynamic clocking nonsense, apparently because that leaves no operational clock speeds available between 2D and 3D speeds.

Having the 2D settings matched to 3D settings corrected poor performance issues that I had with 6970M and 6990M CrossFire, but they did not have the dynamic clocking junk that they built into the new 7970M GPU. With 6970M and 6990M it was limited to low performance and the video cards staying stuck in 2D mode... nothing problematic of the magnitude I have experienced with 7970M CrossFire.

I look forward to seeing if this worked for DarkSiders 2. Don't be terribly surprised if it does not work. I still get a black screen freeze running 3DMark11 at stock GPU speeds about 50% of the time and almost 100% of the time with a mild GPU overclock. If the problem continues, you probably need to look into having the GPUs replaced.

 

poop.... I just installed my card last night and here we are.... 1 card stays at 1.00 at full load...

- @ work right now... Will try to test some games throughout the day in my office...

Man... Now I am having problems with Darksiders 2.... It ran perfect before the fire... Crossfire enabled = half frames, disable crossfire and running 1 card doubles in frames....

 

I tried to recreate the crash again but deliberately staying in the inventory menu and clicking around. Apparently the clocks are fluctuating incessantly. However, I was simply unable to get it to crash (not that I should complain..). This was with a simply underclock at 750/1025 and 2D clocks at stock btw. As such I didn't go further to test with ATIFlash but will do that if the crash happens again.

Having lost my precious 1GB USB drive I'll be looking into creating a separate DOS boot partition in my hard drive. Hope it doesn't come to that

Question to Mr. Fox: how come you haven't got your cards replaced yet? I was under the impression that you were inclined to believe newer batches of 7970Ms to be better.

 

I have an open support ticket on this, bro. Sometimes the wheels turn slow, but I know it will get sorted. I did get one replacement set and they were a lot worse than the cards I already have. I returned the new ones and kept the originals because they had fewer issues. Thanks for asking.

 

Update: I placed an order for a USB flash drive so I can finally try some vBIOS flashing Will probably go and tinker around a bit when it arrives..

Mr Fox if you see this: remember when you said somewhere that you saw a massive improvement in GPU utilisation when 2D=3D clocks? You think it might be still good if the 2D clock's slightly different? In any case, I've seen the core clock at 450MHz at times. What should I make of that

 

Not sure what you mean, bro. Are you seeing that behavior with the modded vBIOS with 2D set for 3D? If so, I've never seen that happen.

With a stock vBIOS, yes... absolutely that happens. Dynamic clocking can run core and memory at a number of speeds in between stock 2D and stock 3D. That is one of the problems the modded vBIOS fixes. (I am speaking in the context of my own malfunctioning video cards. If/when they work properly, it may not be necessary to do that tweak.)

 

I've yet to have a chance to try any vBIOS flashing so the 450MHz (a transient behaviour, I should have added) was seen with original vBIOS. Let's hope that once 2D and 3D clocks are the same the in-betweens stop appearing altogether.

 

Matching 2D/3D clocks to same value didn't improved to me nothing.

 

Double negative FTW Are you talking about improvements in Darksiders 2? I think we need an underclock for this game no matter what.

I haven't had a black screen after several multi-hour gaming sessions but the menu's still crashing me as before

 

I still had blackscreens while underclocked by 100mhz core/memory plus 2d/3d clocks was the same, i blame drivers. Try april 18 drivers (8.97 aka 12.5beta)

 

Not sure if 100MHz would've been sufficient for my machine but when I underclock to 750/1050 it is completely stable (save for the inventory crash). Maybe another 50 off your mem clocks will do the trick? Otherwise just keep trying lower clocks until the cards run slower than HD 4000